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"Hidden Figures" Women to Receive Congressional Gold Medal

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HAMPTON, Va. (AP) - The U.S. Senate may award a Congressional Gold Medal to the women portrayed in the 2016 film "Hidden Figures."

The Daily Press reported Wednesday that the award would go to Katherine Johnson and Christine Darden, and posthumously to Mary Jackson and Dorothy Vaughan.

The women crunched numbers at the NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton during the early days of the U.S. space program.

The U.S. Senate is considering a bill that would award the medal to the mathematicians. They worked in the pre-computer age, calculating rocket trajectories and earth orbits for the earliest American space flights.

Much attention has been given to Johnson, who will turn 100 on Aug. 26. But Katherine Moore, Johnson's daughter, said she likes to stress that she was part of a team.

Don Rush is the News Director and Senior Producer of News and Public Affairs at Delmarva Public Media. An award-winning journalist, Don reports major local issues of the day, from sea level rise, to urban development, to the changing demographics of Delmarva.